Doom 64
by sitebender
Summary: A horror drama based on the first level of Doom 64 from a first person perspective.
1. Chapter 1: Staging Area

CHAPTER 1: Staging Area

I wake up on a cold slab of a table. It's metal with blood on it. I think it's my blood; after all, I am on the table. There are three lights on in the room, one above me and one on each side of me. The light overhead is the brightest and the longest, hanging directly over the table. On the walls beside me are computer monitors with vital statistics.

My shirt is missing; it looks like I just had surgery from the bandages around my ribs. There is a freshly stitched up gash on my head. Each time I take a breath there is a sharp pain in my ribs.

I'm shirtless and a little fuzzy on what I am doing here. A voice calls out, "Brett! Are you up? Get me out of here man?"

When I look to my right, I see a man in a white lab coat inside of a tall cage made of chain link fence with a locked door. It looked like a kennel and looked cramped in there.

The man inside has blood on him and there is a bluish light above him. He's short and gangly with brown eyes and straight black hair. His hairline is receding and there is blood under his fingernails. On his finger is a wedding band. He rattles the cage something fierce, and says, "Get me out of here before they come back!"

After I prop myself up, that is when I notice just how cold the metal table really is. Either I haven't been lying there long or I've been dead. There is no heat on the metal table where I was.

On the other side of the room is another chain link cage and a body slumped over on the floor in a seated position. The doc starts rattling his cage, "Brett! Are you one of them yet?"

As I feel the stitches on my forehead, I ask him, "One of who?" Then I shake my head and ask, "Who are you?" With that said, I notice a shirt on a metal countertop next to me.

The doc replies, "Come on, don't play this game. You know who I am; I'm still the same guy you told to stay away from your sister two years ago when I met her."

I carefully put on the green shirt and tell him, "That doesn't make me feel good about why I should let you out." I must have had a reason for wanting him to stay away from my sister, especially with that wedding band on his finger.

When I hop off the table he reaches down into his beltline. He tells me, "You should let me out, because I have this."

The doc then whips out a pistol and I tell him, "Easy there fella, stop waving your manstick around. You're not gonna shoot me are you?"

He is insulted at the thought, "I'm a medical doctor, its my purpose in life to help people!"

I notice that there is a hole in the green shirt at my left ribcage along with a lot of red blood stained into the shirt. The shirt is light and the sleeves are short.

Once the shirt is on me, I point to the other cage and ask him, "How long have you and sleeping beauty over there been in the cages?"

The body remained slumped head down lurched forward with his ass flat on the ground. The doc tells me, "Days, but who knows how long its been. They've been starving us and it looks like Melissa didn't make it."

I could barely tell it was a woman. She has thick black hair and her face is pointed down. I ask the doc, "Who's they?"

"If I knew who they were, I wouldn't call them they. They're the ones that knocked me out and left me in here with this," says the doc as he waves his gun around.

As the doc looks down to Melissa slumped over, he, "I bet UAC management will really miss her. She was one of the lead software designers for the portal project."

I had to ask, "What portal project?" In my head it rang a bell and gave me a vision of red light engulfing me with swirls of orange luminescence consuming me. Was that a flashback or my imagination taking over?

With a sigh, he informed me, "It's why we're all here Brett. The UAC needed to test its portal project through space and the shortest distance through space is the lab here on Phobos to the base on Deimos." He then rambles and shakes his head, "Why they couldn't just send it from a space station to Earth I will never know."

The doc then asks me, "Are you gonna let me out of here?"

"Unless you know where the key is," I tell him, before I add, "You're not going anywhere."

He points with the gun and gets wily eyed at my hip. He says, "Look in your pocket."

Sure enough, when I reach in my pocket there is a bunch of keys. There were so many keys that one of them probably opened the padlock. Holding it in my hand, I tilt my head and ask him, "Now why would I have the key?"

He yelled out while pointing the gun at me, "They put it on you! Now give it here so I can get out!"

When I reach to give him the key, a voice comes over the PA. It's a woman's voice, she sternly says, "Do not give him the key Parks." Now I know that I have a last name at least.

The doc tries his best with his fingers to snatch the key through the chain link fence, but it's useless. I look up and see a tiny red light on a camera that is pointing at us. The camera lens focuses on me and I ask, "Yeah? Why shouldn't I?"

There was no answer, so I take a step toward the camera and it follows me. I ask it louder, "Who are you?"

Then the doc yells, "Come on Brett, give me the key! We've worked together here for four years! I married your sister Charlene a year ago on Earth. We got married in Corpus Christie, your home town so your parents wouldn't have to travel."

In my head, I wonder, do I even have a sister? Is he married to someone else and just lying? Am I even from Texas? Why is it the only thing that I can remember is that damned portal? Did I go through it and that's why I can't remember anything?

The doctor broke into my thoughts when he tells me, "I've got the gun and trust me pal, when we get out of this little room, we're gonna need it!"

I take a moment to sit down in the corner below the camera. Sitting in the dark gives me a moment of privacy to think. Even with the doc yelling and screaming for me to help him, I feel like it's the only private place. At some point, I take a look over to slumpy in the second cage. Then I ask the doc, "What happened to her?"

The doc answers, "Same thing that's gonna happen to me if you don't let me out. I'm gonna either starve or blow my brains out like she did!" He was right; there were chunks of brain on the wall behind her and a gun on the floor of her cage. Funny how when I see it, I am reminded that my favorite color is red.

When I stand again and take a step to the doc's cage with the key, the voice sounds again. She tells me, "Don't do it Parks, he's in there for our safety."

I turn back to the camera and ask, "Yeah? Am I in here for your safety too?"

Without warning, the camera shatters and I look behind me to see the doc with the gun in his hand and a smoking barrel. He informs me, "Now they can't see us."

I tell him, "But they can still hear us."

"Not without pressing the intercom button," he explains. He then adds, "You're in here probably because you can't be trusted either."

I ask, "Then why didn't they cage me up too?"

He tells me, "Because there are only two storage cages. Go try the door and see if you can exit out of here."

There were two doors in the room. One was smaller and it was a storage closet. The doc had a point, because when I tried the door it was locked. The panel to open the door was red, indicating that it was locked. He starts coughing up blood and I ask him, "Are you okay?"

He tries to tell me while coughing, "Its internal bleeding, they had to rough me up pretty good before they put me in here."

I ask him, "And they still gave you a gun?"

"I was unconscious when they threw me in here," said the doc before he waved the gun around, "This gun is to shoot myself, when I get lonely." Blood dripped down from his mouth and he tried to wipe it off, but it just smeared. He gets angry and rattles his cage with a shout, "Now let me out!" He coughs some more, before shifting his weight against the wall behind him.

He composes himself to stand with his own power and tries to calmly tell me, "They shot you and dumped you in here. I am the one that plugged the holes and put stitches in you. They then repaid me by sticking us in cages to starve. That is the kind of people we are dealing with."

Pacing the room back and forth I thought about it. Over and over again, until I asked him, "Where did you say we are?"

He answers, "Phobos Lab, but I've come to know it as the eye of the shit storm." He coughs up more blood and wipes it from his mouth before he adds, "Maybe even my grave."

"Where's the intercom," I ask him, and he points over to the other wall. Next to the other cage was a button, nice and close to the fence.

The doc tells me, "Over there. You'll be lucky if you can get an answer."

I take a step to the intercom and find the switch on the wall. There is a little speaker to talk into, I call out, "Hello? Is somebody out there?" There is only a haze of static when I depress the button. With the press of the button, "You were just talking. Who's out there?"

From behind me, the doc laughs while sigh, "Nothing."

With my finger on the button and my arm next to the second cage, a light in the cage flickers once. Maybe it was mores code, but there was only one blink. Another flicker with my wrist next to the metal of the cage and the body slumped inside.

I ask again, "Who's out there?" Then I depress the button and listen again in silence. My hand slams on the button and I yell into the speaker, "Why are we in here?" There was nothing but the sound of silence.

With my back to the button, the dead woman to my side, and the doc in front of me, I let out a deep breath. The doc looks up above him to the light fixture. His face turns a bright white. He then crouches down a little in his cage while he continues to look above him.

There is a sound that we can both hear above him. A scratching sound, so I approach him. He puts his finger over his mouth toward me to signal quiet. We both listen to the sound more and he whispers to me through the fencing, "You gotta get me outta here. I've heard that sound a lot. I think they're gonna come through the light."

In my mind, I thought about why they would lock him in a cage with a gun, only to come through the ceiling after him. Perhaps he locked the door to the room and locked himself in the cage.

I whisper, "Relax, it's probably a rat."

"There aren't any of the filthy creatures on Phobos," he whispers back as he points the gun at the ceiling.

Then we hear something slam into the light fixture above him. It is a startling, jarring sound that made us both flinch. He tells me again, "You've gotta let me outta here!"

Another jarring slam pops one of the screws out of the light fixture. The corner hangs down a mere inch, before a dark clawed hand slips its way through. The doc is spun into a panic and starts rattling his cage, screaming, "Don't let the rats get me Brett!"

I fumble with the keys and drop them to the floor as a slim arm slips through the open corner of the fixture. The arm was humanoid, but it didn't belong to any of God's creatures. The clawed hand swipes at the doc as he fires off a few shots into the creature's arm.

It bleeds just like the rest of us, but ignored whatever if any pain that it felt. The arm continued to extend further, but the doc was safe on his back on the floor with the gun pointed to the air. He started to kick the door of the cage wildly to get out.


	2. Chapter 2: The Pistol

CHAPTER 2: The Pistol

"You're not helping," I tell him as I hold the lock in my hand and he pleads with me to, "Hurry!" The first key didn't work, nor did the second. The third key on the ring slips in; twists and I take the pad lock off the cage. The doc kicks the door into my face and sends me flying back against the metal table.

The doc quickly gets the padlock from where it was dropped and locks the cage door once more. As for the creature's arm, it is slowly dragged up through the open corner of the lighting fixture. Once the arm is through, the corner of the fixture is permanently bent down.

I shout out, "Is that what put you in there?"

He exclaims, "Hell no! I've never seen that thing before!" He keeps the gun pointed up at the slick metal ceiling and utters, "It's still up there?"

There was a tense silence as we waited for anything more to happen. We waited for any sound or denting of the metal ceiling to indicate what was there. It was nothing but an uneasy silence.

Suddenly there was a gasp of air next to us that made both of us jump. It was the woman slumped in the corner. I asked, "How the hell can she still be alive?"

The doc tells me, "She can't, its impossible! Look at the hole in her head!"

She moaned, wailed and tilted her head up to look at us. She opened her eyes to reveal how yellow they were. There was no color in her eyes other than yellow. She gripped the pistol in her hand once again. The back of her head was still missing and her thick black hair draped down with dripping blood. It looked as if she had put the gun in her mouth to kill herself.

Melissa grabbed the chain link fence and slowly helped herself up to her feet with the pistol in hand. There was dark blood that poured from her mouth down her chin as I uttered, "Now there's the face of the one that got away."

The doc utters, "I gotta put you back in the grave Melissa."

I yell out, "How the fuck can you kill her? She's already got a hole in her head!"

"I'm a doctor," he tells me, "I'll find a way." He then extends his arm, squints his eyes and puts a bullet in her heart. She takes the impact and continues to gasp for air as she clings to the fence.

She raises the gun at him and we both dive for cover behind the metal table. The gunfire was terrifyingly close. Bullets sent sparks off of metal panels. The bullets spring and ricochet until there is nothing but a clicking sound from the empty gun she carried.

The doc coughs up some blood and I ask, "Are you hit?"

He holds the gun close to his face with his back against the table as he tells me, "No. It's nothing."

We hear her wailing and rattling the fence slowly with controlled jerks. To confirm this, we peak out from around the table. The doc peaks out from the right while I peak over and wonder, "They didn't give you more than one clip right?"

As we look at the wailing undead woman, the static from the intercom turns into a feminine voice. She tells us, "My name is Jo Anna Carmack."

I utter, "Perfect timing Jo Anna." The button of the intercom was right next to Melissa's cage. I ask the doc, "So we're safe right? She's out of bullets?"

"I thought she was out of life," replied the doc, "But I was wrong about that."

If I were feeling up to it, I would jump across the table to hit the intercom, but in my painful state, I have to walk around the table to the wall. My hand slams into the button as I ask, "You could have talked to me when I wanted you to." With that said, I take a step back away from Melissa who is throwing up on the floor next to me.

"It's getting difficult for me to maintain contact," Jo Anna informs us, before adding, "When I keep using the intercom, they know where I am."

With the button down, I utter, "They, they; who's they?" Then I turn to the doc and say, "You say they, she says they." The doc gets a minor chuckle at the thought as he peaks out from behind the table.

Jo Anna explains, "They are the aliens, demons or whatever was transported back here to the lab. They've infected the entire lab with a mutagen that has been changing everyone. When you're first infected, you still look human, but you don't act human."

I tell her, "I think I see that." There was a brief silence, so I ask her, "And what's the second?"

She tells me, "You turn into one of them and it keeps getting progressively worse from there." Then Jo Anna asks, "Have you released the doctor?"

I had to ask, "Why shouldn't I?"

"He's been infected," she informs me with a stern voice.

The doctor stands up from behind the table and yells out, "That's a lie you bitch! I'm gonna kill you when we get out of here!"

My jaw was gaping open at that and I was a little stunned he would say it, but Jo Anna did just warn me that they look human, but do not act it. So I press the button and tell her, "I've got good news Jo Anna. I didn't release him, but he shot off the lock or something like that."

She shouts, "What? Parks you idiot! Put him back in there if you can before he mutates!"

The doc has his gun pointed at Melissa's face. He pulls the trigger and the zombie is sent to the floor with even more red paint splattering the wall behind her.

I inform Jo Anna via the intercom, "He's got a gun, that might be a little difficult. Hey let me ask, who gave him the gun?"

There was a brief silence as Melissa had stopped her wailing. Jo Anna answers, "That was officer Turner"

Staring at the doc, I ask him, "You're alright, right? You're still on my side?"

"Yes I am," said the doc, "Although it did take you a while to open the door." The doc then pressed the button on the intercom and got his face close to the speaker. He tells Jo Anna, "Remind me to thank officer Turner for locking me in there."

Jo Anna said in a slightly frightened voice, "Oh he's right outside my door, I wish I could send him your way so you can thank him yourself." She then tells me, "Look, Parks, we've discovered something that will make you immune to the mutagen. You need to inject yourself with it."

The doc almost chuckles and says, "Don't believe her; she's with the ones that put us in here!"

She squawks over the intercom again, "Go into the storage closet. I need you to go back there and inject yourself with what you find in the red case."

With the press of a button, I ask her, "Haven't I already been infected if I'm in here with the doc?"

Jo Anna replies, "No, not if you haven't been bitten or scratched." I felt up the stitches in my head, there was a possibility that I have already been infected from whatever made that scratch.

The doc slams his hand on the button as he glares at me with his brown eyes, "Parks already injected himself with it, now what?"

"That's a lie McDaniel and you know it," utters Jo Anna.

He asks, "How would you know?"

She informs him, "You should know there are cameras everywhere." Then she sternly tells me, "Now go inject yourself and I'll let you out!"

The doc keeps his hand away from the button, he gets closer to me and whispers, "She'll let you out just like that? You'd probably be injecting yourself with it, because there is no anti-mutagen. She's lying."

I question, "How do you know?"

The doc instantly told me in a hush tone, "Because unless there are two Jo Anna Carmack's in this place, I overhead one of the men talking that she's the one that shot you." He has a crazed look of anger and fear. A man driven to insanity by being locked in a cage for days. He went on to say, "Sure she'd probably deny it, an accident. Maybe she was aiming for something else, but Brett, I know what I heard when they brought you in and I heard them distinctly say, it was her."

I ask, "What other choice is there?"

Looking back to his former cell, he ponders, "We could go up into the ceiling."

Furrowing my brow with my hand, I utter "That thing is probably still up there."

"We have this," he tells me with the gun in his hand next to his chin.

My opinion was discouraging, "Wrong, you have that. I have bandaged ribs and a gash on my head. So I won't be doing any climbing or monster fighting." Holding my ribs, I walk over to the rear of the room where the storage closet is. My hand pressed the button on the panel next to it and the door slid open.

The doc continued to stand behind me as he shouted, "You need to realize that they put you in here because they want you infected." He begins to cough while covering his hand with his left wrist. His hand was curled and contorted as he tried to not let his germs get to his palm. There was a small amount of blood on his wrist after the cough that he wiped on his white lab coat.

Jo Anna could see us on the camera and she told me, "The case is in the drawer to your left." Sure enough, there it was. I left the room and moved past the doc to ask a question via the intercom.

I ask her, "Where do I inject it?"

"Anywhere in you is fine," she replies.

With a smirk, I ask her, "Should I have the doctor administer the treatment?"

She answers without even a laugh, "Just do it Parks." When I turn around, the doc is leaning in the doorway, blocking me from reentering the storage closet.

He tells me, "Ask her why no one else gave you the injection when you've been unconscious on the table."

That question was a double edged sword and nothing good would come from it, but I ask anyway, "Why wasn't I given the injection when I've been unconscious?"

The broken camera stared vacantly at the room as Jo Anna answered, "Dr. McDaniel was the one that removed the bullet, why don't you ask him?"

With a twinge of anger, the doctor answers, "It's because it doesn't exist Brett." He then gets nice and close to the intercom and shouts, "Now let us out of here!"

"I can't do that," she replies, "It's for safety that I keep you both in there until Parks has been injected."

I ask via the intercom, "How do you know he's been infected?"

She answers, "His thinking is radically altered, he's coughing up blood and it's only gonna get worse."

The doc tried to justify himself, "I've been locked in a cage for days and starved. You tell me your thinking wouldn't be radically altered and I'm coughing up blood because I was beaten."

Jo Anna informed me, "The next step is a distinctive rash, painful sores, nausea and a lack of coordination. Dr. McDaniel is the one that observed all of these conditions in the others. Now whether he likes it or not, he's going to be the one getting examined."

With that said I push the doc out of the way and head into the storage closet. The red case is still on a metal countertop. The case has a pair of hinges and inside is a velvet interior with a hypodermic needle and a small bottle containing a liquid. There is plenty of medical jargon on the side of the bottle on a label.

I take out the needle and the doc tries to interrupt. He tells me, "If you are really going through with it, let me do it. I don't want my brother-in-law dying from an air bubble in your heart." He tries to snatch the needle from me, but I pull it out of his reach.

He begins coughing specks of blood again and wipes off his chin with his lab coat. I tell him, "No thanks doc." Using the needle, I pierce the top of the bottle and suck all of the liquid.

Jo Anna says, "Turn around so I can see it go in you."

I turn to the camera with the doc behind me. The doc keeps his gun close to him as he glares at me. The liquid is sucked completely into the needle. The intercom tells me, "Now inject yourself with it."

There is a scowl on the doc's face as he begins to approach me from behind. He comments, "After everything I've told you, I can't believe you're doing it." The needle gets jammed into my arm and injects the contents.

I sat back against the counter and I can't say that I feel any different. How was I supposed to feel? If I did just infect myself, would I know it? My vision suddenly gets red and hazy. I take a gulp of oxygen and I feel warm, like I'm about to get sweaty.

The doc came and took a look at me. He looks me in the eye and asks, "How do you feel?"

My response was a cold, "I'm still standing here ain't I?" I tug at my shirt and ream the neckline of it as sweat begins to pour out. My vision is still red and getting blurry.

He says, "You don't look too good. I'm not gonna have to shoot you if you go all crazy am I?"

The intercom spoke the word, "Good."

I utter the words, "I did it." With that said I took up and headed out of the storage area to the intercom. My walk is weak and the pain in my ribs doesn't hurt. To make it to the intercom, I need to prop myself up on the examination table.

Once I make it to the intercom, I press the button to ask, "You saw me take it right?" There is a brief pause, so I tell her, "Unlock the door now."

After a moment of silence that seemed like she had forgotten we were in here, Jo Anna tells us, "I can't quite do that yet."

In my hot sweat, I think it's a game she's playing. I ask her, "Come on Jo Anna, why not?"

With a sigh that came through the intercom, she replies, "Because you're gonna need to kill Dr. McDaniel."

With my hand on the button, I utter, "Repeat that." The doc looked very intently at me and the intercom as we waited for a response. Maybe he was looking at me, because I was suddenly sweating like turkey on the day before Thanksgiving.

"You let him out," she says.

I tell her, "I can put him back in."

"But he shot out the camera," she tells me.

I run my fingers through my hair as I wonder, "Yeah, so what does that mean?"

Jo Anna informs us, "It means that I can't get visual confirmation that you have locked back in. There are little sensors in each room and a satellite in orbit that let me detect his life sign. With this terminal that I'm sitting at right now, I can determine if he is dead or not and where he is. There is no sensor on that padlock that will tell me he's locked in."

The doc points the gun at me and says, "No one is killing me; not today, not tomorrow or any time that I know its coming."

I push the intercom button and inform Jo Anna, "If you really wanted me to kill him, you should have whispered it to me. Maybe we should have used two cans and a string or something."

The doc was intent on living, "You tell her that even if I was dead or infected, it wouldn't matter, because as you just saw from Melissa over there, the dead rise. They live long after they should. They live with holes in their head and bullets in their heart."

With my finger on the intercom button, I tell her, "The doc doesn't want to die today. Maybe if I give you the secret password you can let me out." I get my mouth nice and close to the intercom and cup my hand between my face and the speaker in order to ask, "Why did you give him a gun?"


	3. Chapter 3: Nightmare

CHAPTER 3: Nightmare

Some consider the pistol crude and ugly; many would prefer a blade, because it can ensure a quick and clean death. The clean part is if you ignore the blood pouring out. Another thing about bladed weapon is that two men can battle until the cows come home as long as their skills are evenly matched.

Now a pistol on the other hand; if two men with pistols in a duel to the death, they will both fire the pistol and if their skills are even, then both men will die. Unless of course one of them is shot in the shoulder or arm. Fire a bullet into a man's leg and there is a good chance that he can bleed to death, if not walk with a limp for the rest of his life. Bullets can shatter bone and leave a man dying from bone fragments turning his body to hamburger on the inside. Perhaps it is a crude weapon.

From the doorway of the closet, the doc laughs to himself, "I've heard of all of this survival of the fittest stuff, but it's the meek that inherit the Earth my friend. With all of your muscles, and a lifetime of hitting the gym, they don't mean a damn thing to a guy with a gun." With that said he coughs a sputter of blood in front of him.

With my forehead against the wall, I close my eyes and wonder, "I thought you said it is your purpose in life to help people."

"Oh it is," said the doc, "I'm helping me. Even when a plane is crashing from the sky and those little masks fall out of the ceiling, they tell you to help yourself before you help others."

I tell him, "If you're gonna shoot me; get it over with."

The doctor laughed, "I'm not going to shoot you Brett. Charlene would never forgive me if I did that."

I ask, "Then what?"

He places the keys on the metal table and tells me, "Go get into that cage over there." He gestures with his hand to the cage he was in.

Glancing at the keys and shifting my vision back to the doc, I wonder, "Do you really want to do this?"

"I don't want to," says the doc, "I have to." He puts up his hand with a gesture, "But don't worry, I'll come back with help. You said it yourself that you're too injured to be crawling through air ducts."

"No," I tell him, "I'm just too smart to go crawling through air ducts when there's something up there with a wolverine's claws at the end of its fingers. Like you told me, all of your lifetime of studying books won't mean a damn when you run out of bullets up there in the air duct."

I take a step forward and the doc takes a step back as I ask him, "How many bullets have you shot off with that thing?"

"Not enough to be out," he tells me.

Then I begin to wonder out loud, "One in the camera, a few in the arm of that creature and one in the body of slumpy over there. If you didn't know, a clip to that gun holds twelve bullets, but that's if and only if they gave you a full clip of ammo."

The doc's hand begins to rattle and he informs me, "They would."

"Yeah," I start to say, "Is that because you stole it off a guard before they locked you in here?"

"That's preposterous," says the doc, before he adds, "They would have checked me for weapons!"

I deduce, "Then what you're saying is that they'd give a man a minimum amount of bullets to end his life instead of giving him a full clip of ammo."

He gets angry and his eyes go wily again. He takes a step forward with the gun extended. In an instant, I shove the gun to the side with my left hand and put my meaty fist into his chin with my right. The gun goes off and he spins to the wall. The bullet ricochets on the metal panels of the wall. In all the commotion, he had dropped the gun to the floor.

My vision is red, my legs are weak, but I still manage to spin him around again and punch him a second time. Blood spatters from his nose and mouth. He looks at me sniveling and says, "I wasn't gonna shoot you Brett."

With that said, I throw him in the storage closet. He flies ass first to the metal counter in the area. He tries to get up and right back in my face, but I punch him a third time and send him spinning to the floor. He props himself up on his hands and knees with his nose draining blood like a faucet.

I grab the gun from the floor where he dropped it. He pleads as I walk over to him again with the gun in my left hand. He is still on the floor with his left hand up toward me to shield himself from a bullet. He calls out, "It's not worth it. It's not worth losing your humanity over this situation." My vision is bleeding red and I can't even tell if there's one man or two that I'm looking at.

With my heart beating out of my chest, I tell the doc, "No, its not." I press the button next to the door and seal him in the closet then push the button to lock the door. The small panel next to the door turns from green to red. My vision slowly returns, like walking out of a fog into a field.

Then I walk over to the intercom and ask, "Do you see the doc in there?"

She replies, "I see him."

"Can you see on your little map," I begin to say, "That he's locked in?"

"One sec," she tells me. After a brief pause, she adds, "He's locked in."

I ask her, "Do I get out of here now?" There was a haze of light static from the PA system. Eventually, I heard a beep and the panel next to the main door of the room turned from red to green. The sound of the door unlatching gave a beep signal.

She spoke up, "Before you step out there, I need to tell you something."

I wondered, "Yeah? What's that?"

"You don't want to leave that room," she explains.

I ask her, "What am I gonna find outside that door?"

"UAC has lost control," before she adds, "The mutagen has infected almost every living thing in the entire complex."

As I glance across the metal examination room, I tell her, "This room is starting to look more comfortable all the time. Maybe if I just put some curtains up and an easy chair this cage will be as good as home."

She informs me, "You're not the only one in a cage. I'm stuck in the surveillance room."

I tell her, "Twist the door knob sweetie and take a step out."

"I can't," she tells me, "I've got the door barricaded."

As I look to the solid steel door, I utter, "You must have the only wooden door in the place. From the look of it, these doors are solid steel and nothing will be able to get through! I doubt even a rocket would blow open one of these babies."

She had a speedy answer, "One of the lines to the pneumatic pumps was cut and the door is stuck partially open." After a pause she slowly tells me with a breathy voice, "I can see movement out there and sometimes they reach through to get in." With a worried voice, she states, "Sometimes they get so close that I need to shoot my former coworkers in the face to keep them from getting through."

"Its hard to believe that you and I are the only ones," I tell her, "Don't tell me we have to repopulate the lab."

"Hardly Parks," she said with a sly smile in her voice, "Look, I've called Heaven to tell them the situation, but they're not responding. I think we're on our own down here and I sure could use your help getting out of this room, but the risk is up to you."

I put my forehead against the wall ask I ask, "What do you need me to do?"

"I will guide you on your way here," she tells me, before she asks, "Do you still have the gun?"

"I doubt there's any bullets left in it," I inform her, "But yeah, I've got it."

"You're gonna need it if you leave the room," she says, "That gun will be the only way you can survive in the halls."

With confidence, I tell her, "I'm sure I'll manage."

"Don't be a cocky bastard Parks," she exclaims. "You don't realize that this place has turned into a nightmare. The dead keep rising, even with holes clear through their head." She then continued, "I'll keep calling Heaven for a rescue."

"I'm a lot closer than Heaven," I tell her with the gun in my hand, "So I'll come get you." After that, I add, "You just gotta tell me the way."

With a gleam of happiness, she says, "Thanks Parks."

I tell her, "You can thank me by answering me one thing."

She wonders, "What's that?"

The question I ask is, "Why did I have the keys to the cages in my pocket?"

"You're the janitor," she tells me almost with laughter, before she adds, "Those cages are storage areas, so of course you'd have the keys to the padlocks."

I begin to think in my head, Brett Parks, super janitor. A man forced to clean up the mess left by the Union Aerospace Corporation and save the damsel in distress. All while he is wounded and shot, perhaps even by the woman he is about to rescue.

After getting lost in my thoughts, Jo Anna asks, "Parks? Are you there?"

"Not for long," I tell her, "I'm gonna take a step outside and get some fresh air."

She stops me to add, "Oh and Parks; One more thing."

I start to tell her, "If you're gonna tell me to be careful..."

"Shooting the head doesn't do much," she warns me, "You've gotta immobilize them."

What could a person say to that? Instead I comment to myself, "Uh thanks babe." With that said, I push the green panel next to the door to open it. The door lifts from the ground and slides up with a "swoosh" sound.

There was one last question that I had to ask her, "Are there better weapons to immobilize them with? Is there an armory around here?"

"There are plenty of guns at the security post," says Jo Anna.

I wonder, "How far is the post?"

"Not far, I'm going to lead you right here," she informs me, "You'll need to find some weapons along the way to get here."

The word "Great," is muttered from my mouth, "Are there any night vision goggles, or at least a shotgun with a light at the end? It sure would make seeing in the dark a lot easier."

With my arms out and the pistol pointed in front of me, I duck my head beneath the door as it rises. I can see there is a much larger room with a beautiful domed ceiling that shines in star light from a giant window overhead. Looming overhead is the entire red planet of Mars. Somehow, I expected it to be smaller, but from here, it consumes the sky.

Inside the room, beneath the giant skylight are four big circular lights that don't work or they aren't turned on. Off to the side of the room, there are potted plants, chairs and magazines on a coffee table in the center of it all. Up in the corner is a camera watching my every move.

It's the reception area to the medical bay. It looks relatively untouched and unused. Nothing is overturned, nor in disarray. It is eerily serine. For a place that is supposedly overrun with mutant creatures, it seems peaceful. It feels like it is a closed business and I'm not supposed to be there.

Then I notice the toe of a boot in the starlight. When I walk to closely see what it is, I notice that it is attached to a man seated in a row of chairs. His head is back and it looks as if he is relaxing. His right arm is down next to him and his left arm over the top of the chair next to him.

He sits in the shadows, I think he knows I'm there, but could he be asleep? How could he not hear the sound of the door? It's not like I can sneak in an out of an air powered door. All of these questions going through my head. Is he the guard assigned to make sure that I don't get out or to make sure nothing else gets in? My gun stays pointed at his head until I get some answers.

I approach him closer and closer, until he talks. It startled me, but not enough to accidentally fire the gun.

He asks me, "What are you doing out here?" He is still in the shadows and I don't know how to react, he barks at me, "Get back in your cage!" In the dim light, I can see that he has a black helmet on with red tinted goggles that cover his eyes. He is wearing a black uniform that is complimented by crimson colored knee high boots and an empty leather holster for a pistol.

He asks, "Didn't you hear me? Get back in that room now or I'll shoot you in the leg and drag you back in there!"

I keep my gun pointed at his head as I ask some questions of my own, "Who are you?"

He rattles off his name, "Officer Rick Santos, UAC security." There still is no movement from him and then I notice that there is a shotgun in his right hand.

From the left there is a flicker of light. A flat screen television on the wall lit up for a brief second with a haze of black and white static. There are voices, horrible voices, whaling screams that come from the television. There is nothing I can sense other than evil from the message. It grows choppy before the screen cuts to black and there is nothing more.

With a slow gasp, officer Rick bellowed, "I... told... you to get back in there." He had my utmost attention as he stood up from the row of chairs with the shotgun in his hand. With an angry voice, he yelled, "Drop your weapon!"

I yelled out, "You drop yours first!" I can feel the pain of taking in a breath as I hold my gun pointed at him.

He whipped up his shotgun with a single arm and with a big posture he had his right arm extended and pulled the trigger of the shotgun. I could feel the buckshot enter my face and neck, but it wasn't over.


	4. Chapter 4: The Shotgun

CHAPTER 4: The Shotgun

"Parks!"

A woman's voice shattered my thoughts and I was stunned to see the officer still in his chair. His head was still tilted back and it was as if we had never had the conversation.

The PA shouted Jo Anna's voice again, "Parks, you're hallucinating, snap out of it." Was I hallucinating because I'm infected, or was I hallucinating due to post traumatic stress? No matter what it was, I still felt an evil presence in the room. Perhaps it is Jo Anna watching me from the camera on the ceiling or maybe it was facing off with a corpse sprawled out in a row of chairs.

I get closer to the security officer in the darkness. I follow the black pant-leg until my eyes adjust. It's a security guard and in the darkness, I can only make out that he's missing his left arm.

With my gun pointed at his body, I get close enough to give his foot a kick. Luckily, there's no movement. My heart is pounding; I've never had to aim a gun like this. If he startled me, I could easily shoot him on accident.

In his remaining hand is a shotgun. A short, stumpy shotgun lodged in his death grip. At least I did not dream that part up. On his forearm is a bandolier with several shotgun shells held. The bandolier stretches from his wrist to his elbow.

Then I notice in the dim light that I can read his nametag on the left side of his chest. It reads, "R. Santos." The light is so dim that I wouldn't have been able to read it in the darkness from far away, so how did I know his name? Maybe my memory is coming back in ways that I don't realize.

Jo Anna tells me via the speaker on the PA system, "He's dead Parks, there's nothing you can do but say a prayer for him."

His shotgun is very appealing and it draws me to it. I believe that I covet his shotgun and because of that, I put the pistol down on the end table next to the corpse.

His gloved fingers slowly break free as I pry the gun from the shotgun. He must've been dead for days, and the fact that no one helped him means that this has been a big issue for the same amount of time.

Next I need those shells he has on his arm. I realize that unless he was killed and mutilated by his comrades, I'd say he's contaminated with the mutagen. At least it took Melissa a few minutes to rise from her slump. I'm a patient man, but I'm not waiting around to find out that this corpse will come back to life.

He remains still and lifeless, but I still fear him waking up at any moment as I take his wrist again. I quietly whisper that, "If these didn't help you, I doubt they'll help me." Then I slip off the bandolier from his forearm.

Even though no skin was touching the bandolier, I still feel the need to wipe it off with my shirt. My shirt that had blood and holes on it now had a dead man's skin flakes on it. I'm going to need another shirt. After that, I slip the bandolier onto my own forearm.

I raise the shotgun and keep it pointed at the corpse. Then I slowly walk away with the gun still aimed at Officer Santos. Sure enough, he stays dead. I turn my back to him and walk straight out the front door of the medical bay into a hallway.

Meanwhile, the shadow of a humanoid crept along the floor from one end of the sky window to the other. That could have just been in my mind, but I felt like there was something else in the room that I had just left.

The hallway outside the medical bay is dark with a few lights on the floor that light up a path in the center of the hall. There are panels that line the walls, probably titanium now that I think about it. Black supports in front of the panels have rivets through them to hold the panels in place.

In the distance, I can hear the sound of people. A light commotion going on, like people are talking, but not saying anything. Perhaps it is a different language. The lit floor guides my way down the dark hall. It smells like rotten, decaying death and gunpowder. Even with the hallway sealed off, the gunpowder still smells fresh.

I've come to a T-junction. There's a turn to the left and a path ahead. Above my head is a camera that points down the path to my left.

In front of me was a fence door that would lead straight ahead. On the door is another padlock that I probably have the key to. There is a grumble from beyond the door. The grumble sounds distant, but still big enough that I don't want to know whatever's in there.

I get my face close enough to the fence and look in. I'm afraid of what's in the darkness.

So I shy away and quickly turn a corner to the left to discover a woman with her jaw gaping wide open. She looks to be in pain and she hisses a terrible sound. She is barefoot and her clothes look to be scraps, like they've been torn off her.

Because of how close she is, I can see even in the darkness that her skin is crawling with insects that are living off of her. Flies buzz around her and white worms fall out of her hip to the lit floor below.

She reaches out to me with her eyebrows up and peaked toward the middle. It looks like she wants help and mercy. Her arms and hands are covered with dried blood. With her arm extended, I can see that she has missing fingers, but then I quickly see why. Her mouth clamps down on her last remaining index finger that is reached out to me.

The woman's teeth pull and tug at her own finger as she grinds it away with teeth. Fresh, crimson red blood is pouring out down her chin, hand and forearm. She looked as if she didn't want to, but she had to, and she slowly bit off her finger. The bone was a broken stump protruding through her hand like the rest.

Then, "Blam!" My horrified expression, as I took her life with my shotgun. The blast briefly lit the hallway to reveal the metal walls.

I couldn't fathom it. She was eating her own fingers and it looked like she was in her own personal Hell. Not wanting to live, but not allowed to die. Her body hits the floor with a thump and twitches. Her last few fingers flex and contract for a moment as I see her face in the light stretched across the floor.

Her eyes are yellow, without a pupil or an iris. Her hair is very short and strawberry blonde. The life completely escaped her as her eyes went vacant. It was the right thing to do. I know that it was right to do, because she's in a better place. She can't hurt herself now.

What am I thinking? She's not in a better place. She's in a slump on the floor with her body twisted and bloody from my itchy trigger finger. Her twitching subsides as I sit down at the side of the hall to think about things.

In the light of the floor, I can see her body is covered with sores, black spots and a distinctive rash. There are flies collecting on her hip. Blood pools around her body at the lowest point of the hallway where the lights are focused.

Maybe I'll get lucky and someone will call me back into reality.

Instead, it is the voices calling me from down the hall that draw me back to the situation at hand. They whisper in echoes over static in my fuzzy mind. They're coming from down there to my right. Maybe it's another victim in my path of frightened aggression or maybe it's the grim reaper with my number. Whatever or whoever it is, I'm going to find out.

Next to me, I can hear heavy breathing and a light grumble coming from the fence. I think it's the lair to something that I don't want to mess with. It sounds big, like a lion is waiting inside of a dark cage with only a chain link fence to hold it back.

In a moment of fear, I cock the shotgun again. An empty shell drops out and hits the ground.

As I travel down the hall, I notice there are wall panels lying on the floor as if someone had gone through the work to remove them. It's a mess here in the darkness and blood everywhere. Some of the floor lights have red spattered blood on them.

I know now from carrying the shotgun that it feels heavy. There is a thick barrel and it feels husky in my hands. It makes me feel safer to carry a stout weapon like this. Like I can do some damage if I needed to. Some damage like I did to that last girl. There's a hole so big in her that... Well I better not think about it. Its damage was horrific, her face was so mutilated, but I can't think about that. I did what I had to.

I also can't help but wonder why this shotgun doesn't have a light at the end of it. Unless I just don't know how to turn the light on or the head of UAC security never thought that there would be gun battles in the dark.

There is another sound that catches my attention. It is the sound of something slowly being dragged along the floor. I can hear it, moving a foot at a time. Only taking a break for a second before it is dragged again.

Down the hall, I can see it in the floor lights. He is an injured man dragging himself on his belly. His skin is covered with black spots. One of his arms is missing massive chunks of flesh. That arm all bloody red and glistening with blood. The left side of his face has scratches like someone's finger nails were used. As for the other side of his face, it was horribly gory and red, like it was missing and it oozed blood down that side of his face.

Then he notices me and stops to look at me. He smells the air lightly and begins to pant or hyperventilate. That is when he charges at me on the ground. His arms work their best to quickly pull himself across the floor toward me. The two legs behind him waggle, if that's what you call them. He's missing a foot on one side and his entire leg on the other.

It's like he could be a scorpion if he curled his remaining leg at me. He surely should have died from lack of blood with no leg. Not to mention his half crimson face. Around his neck is a dark tie that once complimented a white shirt now turned bloody and dirty. I'm sure the tie had to be choking him each time he dragged himself across the floor.

The man charges at me and uses all of his upper body strength with one hand after another. My shotgun points at him and I warn him, "Stay back or I'll smash your head like a pumpkin on Halloween."

I take steps back until I trip over the downed corpse of the woman. My legs are over her body and she's right there in my face with me on the ground. I'm in the pool of her contaminated blood.

My legs curl back over her lifeless body and she's now between the scorpion and I. The barrel of my shotgun is at his head and I kneel with my right knee on the ground to get a better posture. My heart beats fast with my heavy breaths as I wait to blow his head off. He's after me; this isn't a situation where it's a mercy killing, it's me or him in this hallway.

The charger stops short at her downed corpse and plunges his mouth into her hip that's infested with flies and maggots. It's a sickening sigh of relief that's what he wanted. The scorpion takes bite after bite of her decaying flesh and with her eyes open to the world, she just takes it.

Then I notice that his bloody arm has bite marks out of it and the flesh has been pealed off. It's the same thing to the right side of his face. He reaches into her stomach and uses his frightening strength to tear her open. It's easy for him to do so, like he's done it before.

I stand up with the shotgun close to his head. He's an animal concerned with nothing more than the food in front of him. It's not good to come between animals and their food, so I was best to be off on my way.

There is no iris or pupils in his eyes to tell what he's looking at, but I still feel that he's looking at me. I leave him to the meal and continue down the hall to the sounds in the distance and away from the grumbling beyond the fence door.

I quickly come upon a door to my left, but I chose to continue forward, further down the hall to the voices. It was the commotion of words without speaking.

When I walk past it, Jo Anna tells me, "There's armor in that room." Even hearing her voice, I kept going and she asks, "Parks? Can you hear me? Raise your hand if you can hear me."

I am about to move past the door, when a reddish colored light starts up. It flickers on for a moment and illuminates the door. She really wants me to go in there.

She reiterates, "That's flight control in there. It had nearly a dozen men and women working in there." I think her voice is going to attract attention. She continues, "All of them are infected and I can see them on the security camera."

My silhouette is shown on the door from the red light. It is a shadow of me on the door pointing the way. The door is reinforced and I look to the panel beside the door to see its red.

"Locked," I tell myself, "Oh damn, gotta press on further." The light on the door panel then turns to green, indicating that it was unlocked for me. I wonder if I am being herded like some dumb animal. If I'm in some kind of experiment like the two victims I've already seen. Why can't she help herself if she has access to all of this?

I mutter to myself, "I ain't no sheep lady. I make my own choices." With that said, I press on to the next turn in the hallway and take a right.

At the end of the hall is an illuminated light from high above, but standing in front of me is another person with a thin frame. Her greasy hair is a shade of dark brown and parted in such a way that I can see her back without a single strand of hair obscuring it. I can see her outline from a light of the broken monitor next to her. Her clothes are torn and she looks like a civilian. She hasn't noticed me yet, but she's more concerned with her right arm. I would be too, because her right arm is missing. What horrible things must've befallen these people that they're all missing limbs? Is it an explosion, because chances are that gunfire probably wouldn't remove a limb.

My breath grows still as I try not to make a sound. Holding my breath makes the bullet would in my ribs stop hurting.

Then I notice on the ground is her arm. It looked like it was sawed off. There is a stream of blood that drenches her right side and her torn clothing. It looks like she can't find her arm, but I'm not going to point it out to her.

At the side of her is a broken monitor that flickers and plays the garbled voices that I've been hearing. It looks to jump from clip to clip with a haze of static over it. The screen is smashed and it hangs from the wall like it's almost ready to fall off. That monitor is what has her attention.

Her head twitches to the right side as she looks down while feeling her bloody stump. I think that's when she notices me, because her stance shifts and she slowly turns around. Her stringy, greasy hair is in her face and it looks like she can only see a sliver of me between her locks.

With a shriek, she charges at me with her left arm extended. Her hair waves behind her to reveal that she's missing both eyes. There are heavy scratches over her eyes, like she's the one that pulled them off.

Her mouth is wide open as I raise my shotgun and pull the trigger. The weapon goes "click," with no shot fired. She slams into me with her thumb pressing into my neck and her nail digging into me.

She hisses and roars an inhuman sound before latching onto my neck with her broken teeth. There's no way to get her jaw loose as blood gushes down. I need to get her away from me and it's not going to be pretty.

I shove her away and she rips off the flesh from my sternocleidomastoid. The shove gave me enough distance so I could give her a swift kick between the legs and slug her with my left hand when she was doubled over. Her body hit the ground and her head slammed into the floor. She wasn't knocked out yet and she quickly got up.

My left forearm still has the bandolier of shotgun shells on it. There's no time to reload. Maybe if I was trained to use the weapons, I could. Instead, with my neck wincing to the left from the pain, I readied my shotgun like a baseball bat and when she tried to stand up, I knocked her back down.

There was something else though, that I could hear coming down the hall. It was stumbling, and a struggling to walk. I could see in the shadows that it walked upright, so it couldn't be the scorpion.

Instead it is the fully armored, one armed security officer. Officer Santos held my pistol and had it pointed at me. My own pistol, that apparently I had forgotten when I took his shotgun. It was probably a fair trade.

In my mind, I begin to think about how I used the only shell in the gun against a woman that meant me no harm. I had killed a woman that did more harm to herself than me and probably anyone else for that matter.

I snap out of it and grab the woman from off the floor by her one arm. I wrap my left arm around her neck as the security officer begins to fire wildly at me. One bullet goes into the girl and the other two hit the wall. There are no more bullets after those three and I laugh to myself.

The laughter stops as I hear a growl and a grumble. In fact, officer Santos shares my curiosity. He slowly turns around with his head cocked to the side. Something that I wish I could do without pain, thanks to the hungry bitch in my grasp.

An eerie roar of a moan can be heard, followed by the snapping of a door hinges. That sound was followed by the "ping" of a banging door against steel as it whipped open.

Jo Anna was right. I was safer locked in the room that I woke up in.


	5. Chapter 5: Pinky

CHAPTER 5: Pinky

A second roar was let out by whatever unholy beast was in the darkness. There are the sounds of crushing bones and tearing flesh from the other end of the hall and I hear Jo Anna over the PA, "You better get out of there Parks!"

My forearm tightens across the woman's neck out of my own fear. She of course is oblivious and struggling to escape from me. At least I think she's oblivious, she could be afraid herself and I just don't know it.

We can all hear the heavy paws of something barreling its way down the hall. A thick throated snarl accompanies the hefty feet of an animal.

It sounds like it runs with a limp. Quickly after that, I see the shadowy outline of its broad, meaty figure. The giant figure is taller and much wider than officer Santos standing in front of him.

With his one arm, Santos continues to pull the trigger of an empty gun. The clicking of the pistol is rendered mute by the load roar of the beast. Poor Rick is too stupid to realize that he needs to reload. At least he didn't through the pistol into the darkness. The eerie roar rumbles down the hall and I tremble close with my undead hostage.

As I wonder why Rick hasn't moronically thrown his gun, I look to my hideous hostage and she looks back at me before snapping her mouth shut to nearly bite me.

Large jaws clamp down around officer Santos. I can see the teeth of the beast. Drool comes out of its mouth and oozes down to the floor. The jaws are wide enough to tear out Rick's belly and drop his intestines to the floor.

One of the beast's large paws comes up to the officer's chest and literally tears him in two. The legs hit the ground and what's left of his upper half is thrown across the wall with a bloody stream across the wall.

The beast has proven its dominance. Instead of feasting on officer Santos or one of the other living dead, the beast lets out a roar. Then I realize it's not after a meal; it wants to prove its hunting skills. The light illuminates its fleshless jaw line. There are rows of spiked teeth and twin tusks that are longer than the rest.

I can see it's on four legs, but the hind legs are smaller. The bulk of the beast's body is toward the front. There are massive layers of pink flesh cover its body and its eyes have bloated and swollen skin over them. There are a set of black horns that protrude from its head and point forward like a bull's.

It looks like it's designed to eat no matter what the cost. The heavy skin must shield its body while the jaws can dig in further and further. I could imagine dozens of them eating a whale while still being shot in the back without a care in the world.

In its left shoulder are two darts. It has obviously been tranquilized, even if it is still terrorizing and killing people. Two darts just isn't enough.

There is no way that I'm going to survive this hulking pink beast. It uses one of its paws to smash down on the corpse of officer Santos. The beast scrapes its claws into Rick and slides him across the floor like a dog that shit in the woods.

It bellows out another eerie roar as it looks straight at me like a bull ready to charge. The width of the beast takes up the entire width of the hallway. Getting past it would be a tight squeeze, but there is no way that I could ever get past it.

I'm left with two options, let go of my future wife and reload at the risk that she'll claw and bite me like on the honeymoon or run away. There could be a third idea, wedge my shotgun in its mouth so it couldn't eat me. Even if I got away with that, its claws would still rip me to shreds.

Looks like its plan B for me. So I fled my hostage in terror and take off running further down the hall toward the light. The patter of my feet drew the beast's attention and it slammed its way through the left armed woman. The ugly beast smashed her against the wall pretty good.

Maybe I shouldn't have run, because that makes me look like its prey. I turned a corner to the right and quickly come to a lift, and press the button to call it to me. After I pressed the lift, I turn around to see the pink monster slam into the wall. It turned its head and let out a roar as it proceeded to reposition its body to take another charge at me.

I reload my shotgun and try to steady my shaking hands. One shot went straight into the beast's head with little effect. The elevator isn't operational. There is no power. It makes sense, considering nothing else but emergency lights are on.

The beast's limping legs slowly galloped toward me. Now that I think about it, there is no chance of my survival. The beast will make it to me just as the lift gets here.

I could hear the voices from the monitor down the hall. I could hear the empty shell hit the ground. I could hear the control panel inform me with a pleasant woman's voice, "Power failure." I could hear the paws charging toward me. The beast could barely run straight and it kept scraping the side of the hallway as it came at me.

When I try to load another shell, it falls to the ground. I thought for a moment to pick it up, but instead I take another shell from my left forearm and load it with my shaky hand.

Then "Blam!" A second shell went into the beast's face. I can see the effect of the shell, because of blood streams down its hideous pink face. It's like it was shot by hundreds of pellets.

The beast comes straight at me, and I have to man up. I took the shotgun and used it like a club. I whacked the beast in the fleshy mouth and drew blood. The beast hit me against the lift with all of its might and probably broke a few of my ribs. Its head smashed into the lift and my face was engulfed in a bloated mass of flesh. It was like being smothered by a fat wrestling coach that was nothing but muscle and beer belly.

I'm pressed against the side of the lift and struggled for survival against a demon made for killing. I continue to struggle against it. Even for a breath of air, with my arms trapped by the beast. Punches and elbows are my only way out against this pink hippo that's trying to snuggle with me.

Finally, I broke free and the beast fell to the ground. The beast is now on its belly and one of its claws is stuck in the side of the lift near the right side of my head. In front of my face is a drooling, bleeding mouth with heavy breaths. It breathed in and it felt like I was forced to inhale air from a steam vent. I turn my head and wait for the end.

Its left red eye was looking at mine. The red eye is like looking at a red pearl, because there is no soul behind it. It hurts to breathe, not that there is much air beneath of this monster.

The hot breath remains on my mug and its teeth stay slightly parted, just giving me enough fear that it will eat me at any moment. But what's this? The beast hasn't eaten me yet. In fact, it's either asleep or dead. Maybe the darts in its shoulder are tranquilizers.

I notice up above me that the beast's horns have jammed into the elevator lift. The beast's head is hanging stuck. It's not even conscious. I would think its dead, but it's still breathing like an exhaust fan in my face.

As I look up, I can see the rows of lights high in the air at the second floor above us. The lights are surprisingly bright considering how dark the hallway is.

In the lights, I see shadows. Five shadows up above me looking down. Is it aliens or am I on an operating table being restrained? I could have lost consciousness and I could be remembering why I was in that operating room.

They must be angels, because they look down upon me from within the bright lights as I lie here being smothered by a fleshy pink hippo. A cigarette lands next to me. It was thrown down from above followed by a smoky voice.

The voice asks, "Anyone else think he's a zombie?"

Another voice orders him to, "Put a shot in him and we'll go down there and find out."

I call out, "I'm still alive!"

After I said that, I could see the barrel of a gun pointed at me. The trigger was quickly pulled and a shot was sent down at me. I wince in anticipation expecting a bullet. I look over and saw the beast's maw open with its heavy breathing.

There was no bullet. Instead, one of them shot another tranquilizer into the beast.

A third voice orders, "Put in another, I'm not getting fooled like last time." The beast continues to breathe heavy into my face as I expect it to awaken and eat my face off.

The second voice says, "Collins, you get down there."

One of the five men above me dropped down to our level. First he dangled his feet and then he came down the rest of the way. His boots look heavy, big, clunky, green and not meant for easy running. The boots have armor plates over the shins and the knees. Every piece of armor on him is a dark shade of green while his pants are an olive green with bands around his thighs.

Now that he dropped down, I can see that he is wearing heavy green armor around his chest and shoulders. It was held on by Velcro straps and had green armor plates that draped down the stomach and his groin.

Then he sticks his shotgun in my face and asks, "Are you infected?"

I wonder, "Do I look infected?" Maybe that wasn't the best question to ask given the circumstances.

"Boy," he says, "You look like a meal to this pink pup."

One by one the other four drop down, and before I know it there are five men with their guns pointed at me. Each one is dressed in the same armor. They look like they've been through a lot. There's blood spattered on some armor, and others have claw marks across their chests. The boots they wear are a matching green as well. They each wear earpieces with microphones next to their chin. Four of five of them are carrying shotguns. Each shotgun has a strap to easily carry it on their back.

The one I assume is their leader lightly makes the first one move away. She then asks, "Your name?" It's that point when I realize he is a woman. A serious faced woman that probably lived her life being mistaken for a man. She's in her early 30s. Her features are mannish, her eyes are brown and her hair is strawberry blonde slicked back. It probably ends in a pony tail, but I can't see.

I tell her, "You first."

"I'm Sergeant Lyons," she informs me in her thick hick accent; before she adds "These four are my officers."

I ask her, "Military?"

"No," she replies, "We're a pet project. Now what's your name?"

"Parks," I tell her with a groan, "Brett Parks."

With her so close, I can see the shotgun shells on bandolier up her forearm and around her thighs. The others have the same way of holding their shotgun shells. There are plenty of empty spaces on Sergeant Lyons where she must have had to reload her shotgun.

On her chest is a UAC logo indented into the armor. The yellow paint or sticker of her logo has taken a beating and is nearly scraped off.

She puts her shotgun behind her back and takes out a flashlight to shine it in my eyes. "Keep your eyes open," she tells me. I can feel my pupils painfully contract as she announces her findings, "Your eyes aren't yellow."

Three of the others keep their shotguns pointed at my head while one of them guards the area.

Lyons puts down her flashlight and pulls out her sidearm. She then keeps the gun pointed closely at my head and asks in a thick hick accent, "Well there Mr. Parks, whose side are ya on?" There are snickers from her comrades as each of them keeps a look out for trouble.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I try to tell them.

"There's a little war going on here in the complex," she informs me, "You see Mr. Parks, there's the side that's fighting for righteous and the side that's fighting for wicked."

"That's a little obvious," I tell her, "Considering I just put two shells into the face of this demon."

She says with her hick accent, "Tell me; where's your team Mr. Parks?"

What is he talking about? I mean she. She looks like such a man. I just seem to go from one bad situation to another. I ask her, "What team?"

She puts her gun to my forehead and asks, "Now how can you be walking around these corridors without a team, party or an escort. Where are they hiding?"

"I'm alone," I try to tell her, but I can tell that she doesn't believe me. I add, "Me and Mr. Shell Blaster were doing just fine."

Then she jams the barrel of her pistol into my neck wound and mentions, "But you do have a big ass zombie bite right there." She takes the gun off my open wound and adds, "You'll be a zombie very soon."

I try to politely ask her, "What the hell are you cowboys doing out here anyway?"

Collins tells me with a rough look on his face, "Watch your mouth when talking to the sergeant!"

Sergeant Lyons chimes in, "Oh its not me he should worry about. It's God's ears that wouldn't like hearing it."

With a snicker from one of the other men, "The only god out here is Mars."

"Just shoot him," says one of the other men.

Lyons disputes his idea, "I'm in charge Roberts, I make the orders and you carry them out. Not the other way around." Her attention comes back to me as she shakes his head inward at me and says, "You're as good as dead Mr. Parks."

I try to tell her, "I can't be infected."

"Oh," she says, "And why is that?"

I elaborate, "Because I took an injection that made me immune." There is nothing but laughter from all five of them; laughter and smiles. They weren't laughing with me, they were laughing at me. If I found a man beneath of a pink demon, I'd laugh at him too.

Collins shakes his head with a chuckle as he blurts out, "There is no immunity man."

Lyons then informs me, "That's why we're on this big game hunt. Doctor Ross thinks he can find a cure for this space virus. He's got us finding and caging test subjects like pinky here." With that said she gives the beast a hearty slap on the shoulder.

The beast twitches, but finally it subsides to my relief.

She tries to put me at ease, "Relax Mr. Parks, it was merely a reflex. This big guy won't be awake for another few hours."

She then asks me with her pistol still pointed at me, "So I ask you again Mr. Parks, are you one of the wicked or the righteous?"

All of the things she could ask me. I would have started with, "Hey buddy, are you okay?" Instead he asks me if I'm part of the "righteous or the wicked." Then I begin to wonder if Jo Anna knew they were coming; if she could see them in the security cameras. Maybe she didn't want me to run into them and that's why she tried to get me to enter the room for the armor.

Speaking of Jo Anna, she sure is being quiet for someone that was so informative before. The testosterone junkies haven't mentioned her though, so I'll assume that they don't know she is watching from a camera at the end of the hall. That is only assuming that she's still alive.

Finally one of them broke my thought process and advocates for me, "He's a survivor, let's bring him to Dr. Ross." He was the one watching the hallway before he turned around to interject.

He tries to talk sense into their leader, "Come on sergeant, maybe Dr. Ross can treat him. His eyes aren't yellow yet."

One of the other men put down his shotgun, while the three others kept their guns pointed at me. Lyons tells my advocate, "Watch our six and shut your mouth."

Lyons let out a sigh as she stood back up. She then tells Curtis, "You're right though." She then scratches her head and apologizes, "I'm sorry for the dramatics Mr. Parks, but there are people infected with this disease and they don't realize that Doctor Ross is trying to save their souls."

My advocate then made his way through the pack while holding his gun with a curled elbow. He gave me his hand to shake and said, "We can help you." The man then introduced with a gesture, "This is Mr. Curtis."

Mr. Curtis is short, in his late 30s with curly blonde hair, hazel and a natural smile. I can tell he is use to smiling by how large his mouth is and the end of his lips curl easily when he talks. He is either having fun out here in this nightmare or he can't wipe the smile from his face. His arms are noticeably big and thick too, like he can hold up a bridge if a support is ever knocked out. His hands are meaty, and he probably has a tough time finding gloves to fit.

He then introduced himself, "I'm Griffin." He is a husky, round and tall fellow in his mid 30s that has short pale brown hair and brown eyes. Griffin is the only one not carrying a shotgun. Instead he has a long barreled tranquilizer.

Griffin tells me, "This piece of shit is Roberts." He looks to be a frail man in his mid 20s with a bad look on his face toward me. He has dark brown hair, dark brown eyes and a scowl that could carve an ice sculpture.

Finally, Griffin introduces by pointing to, "Collins." He is a tall man in his 20s with lean muscles, eerie pale blue eyes and red hair.

Collins then tells me, "You can call me Ethan."

I ask them, "Anyone got any headache pills?"

Griffin comes further into the pack and gives his gun to Collins to hold. Griffin then pulls out his flashlight. He shines it at my forehead. He is wearing black gloves like the rest of them. Griffin then asks me politely, "How did you get that cut on your head?"

I tell him, "I don't know. I woke up with it like this."

Griffin informs them, "It looks like it was made by an imp."

I had to question, "An imp? Like a scamp from a fairy tale?"

"I know how he's survived this long," says Roberts, "He's been hiding under a rock."

Curtis calmly tells me, "An imp is what he infected become in the later stages."

Griffin adds, "Before they can't be recognized as human."

Roberts starts poking at me with his shotgun. I tell the douche bag, "How about you poke someone else's hole with that rod?" He looks to be the nervous, trigger happy type that is just looking for a reason to shoot someone.

Griffin then politely apologizes, "Roberts is suffering from the stress."

Collins jumps in and adds, "He's cracking under the stress."

"No I'm not," cries out Roberts, "I'm just looking out for my squad." He pokes at me with his shotgun again and tells them, "You might see a survivor, but what I see is another corpse. He's just going to turn into a zombie." He gets nervous and tells Lyons, "We need to cut this guy loose and carry out the mission."

Griffin continues to examine me with his flashlight. He pulls at my shirt and examines me, "No black spots; no sores." He shines the flashlight into my eyes and utters, "Hmmm… that's interesting."

I ask, "What is?"

"Well," he says.

Roberts asked, "Is he infected?"

"If he wasn't," says Griffin, "I'd say he is now with that bite."

Roberts looks angry with his shotgun pointed at me.

Curtis takes his hand and puts it on top of the shotgun to lightly push it away from me. He tells Roberts, "Calm down."

With a twinge of anger in her voice, Lyons orders, "Collins, you call in Dr. Ross, tell him we got a live one."

Roberts then informs me with the barrel of his shotgun pointed toward me, "In the meantime, I've got my eye on you Parks."

I inform Roberts, "If only I was prettier, I'd have both of your eyes on me."

Roberts hisses back at me, "Tell that to Curtis, he's the ladies man without a lady. He'd be right up your alley cupcake."

Griffin takes out a med kit from behind him. Lyons then asks him, "What are you doing Griffin?"

"He's injured Sir," replies the mild mannered Griffin.

"Save it," says Lyons, "One of your comrades may need it more in the future."

Curtis throws his opinion into the conversation, "Let him do it."

"Last I checked," says Lyons, "This wasn't a democracy. This was an, I'm in fucking charge."

"Sergeant is right," says the tight lipped Collins.

Lyons barks at Collins, "Call Dr. Ross and tell him we have a pinky and a stage-1."

"Right away Sergeant," says Collins.

She orders, "The rest of you three secure the area and await Dr. Ross's arrival." Curtis and Griffin went down the hall and used firepower to secure the area. Collins held his hand to his ear to hear communication better.


End file.
